


another cog in the murder machine

by Ford_Ye_Fiji



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Five that is, GIVE FIVE HUGS DARN IT, Gen, I feel so bad, Number Five | The Boy Has Issues, Number Five | The Boy Needs A Hug, Number Five | The Boy says the F word too many times, Post-Season/Series 02, Rated T for Five's pottymouth, he gets mad and lashes out at the nearest anyone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:00:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25927048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ford_Ye_Fiji/pseuds/Ford_Ye_Fiji
Summary: Five finally gets the breakdown he deserves
Comments: 35
Kudos: 724





	another cog in the murder machine

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry for the f bombs, Five took over and he was unhinged.

Five wanted to bash his head against a wall.

The Sparrow Academy.

The  _fucking_ Sparrow Academy.

No ridiculous umbrella, no deceased Reginald, and nothing familiar in the city around them. Five ran a hand down his face instead of resorting to intense violence, as much as his fingers trembled with the desperate  _need_ to hit something.

He’d been feeling that anger a lot lately.

_Homicidal rage._

Except that had worn off ages ago.

Now he was here in 2019,  _still_ in the wrong  _fucking_ timeline. He ran a hand through his hair, trying to ignore how his breath picked up. His skin crawled and itched, he wanted to tear out his hair, and his clothing burned everywhere it touched. He ached to throw that lamp at the wall and to kick the door in. The sensation of fingers and bed and cloth and clothing made him feel like tearing at his own skin like a wild animal.

And that wasn’t even taking into consideration the noise. His brothers and sisters sat around him in the single hotel room that they could afford with the money that they’d brought from the nineteen sixties. Their words grated, fueling his anger and the strange tearing sensation deep in his chest.

_Everything_ was irritating and he didn’t know  _why_.

Diego, sitting by his side on the bed, brushed into his shoulder as he bickered with Klaus and Five imagined tearing out his jugular with his teeth. He shook the thought away, annoyed at it. He wasn’t like that anymore. _He wasn’t._

Allison clapped her hands and Five grit his teeth, "Wait so Klaus and I were gone the longest! That means we're actually older than you are now!"

Klaus giggled, "Ha! Eat it, Luther."

Luther frowned, trying to protest as Klaus ignored him and gestured expansively, "And with my ten months in Vietnam, that makes me officially the oldest!" He jostled the bed as he flopped down next to his littlest brother, "And you’re the youngest, little man."

Five glared, zeroing in on such a convenient victim, who had tried to drag him into the conversation and with an insult no less, "Eat shit, Klaus."

Diego frowned, "Whoa, hey, Five. Coming on a little strong there huh?" He reached out to put his hand on his shoulder, but Five neatly stood, just out of reach of him, "No, actually. I’m  _not_ coming on a little strong." He turned, voice clipped, his fingers twitching and thrumming with anger, " _Eat shit."_

Five crossed his arms with a snarl, stomach pulling from the shrapnel wound he’d had gotten, what, over a week ago now? He didn’t know. Time had run and blurred together like a soggy painting.

Diego raised an eyebrow and, instead of backing off, turned to face him, "What’s going on here, Five?"

"Fuck off."

Allison frowned with motherly concern, which he did not need from his  _younger_ sister thank you, "Whoa, Five what's wrong?" She placed a hand on his shoulder and he could feel their  eyes on him, Vanya and Allison lovingly concerned, Klaus and Diego mildly curious, and Luther completely confused.

He snapped.

Five shrugged off her hand, his fury swelling and growing and spilling over, "Wrong? What’s  _wrong?_ I don’t know! Maybe- just  _maybe_ \- it’s the fact that none of you will ever listen to  anything I have to say?"

Vanya looked taken aback as Five balled his hands into his fists, words thick with vitriol and acid, "You all were useless back there. Fucking  _useless._ Just like the first time. Every time I  _ask_ for help, either you don’t care or you don’t listen! Luther you  _live_ on the planet nitwit, if it goes down so do you along with the rest of us, asshole." He whirled, pointing at Diego next, "And if I hear another word about fucking Kennedy or," he glowered at Luther, "The damn moon, I’ll kick you into next Wednesday."

Klaus opened his mouth and Five hissed, "Don't even try it, Klaus, you’ve made my job a shit ton harder too. All of you have, and I’m tired of it. I’m tired of trying and having you all  _mess it up._ "

All of them looked as angry as he felt. Good. Allison's brows furrowed with frustration as she looked down at him in his tiny fucking prepubescent body, all fifty-eight years of age wadded up and jammed into some horrific time-space abomination that was just too small for it. Her voice was hard and thin, "Five, what are you trying to do, what’s going on?"

Five wanted to stamp his feet, but he wasn’t a child so he settled for digging his nails into the palms of his hands until they bled, "Trying?  _Trying?_ I’m trying to  _save_ you assholes. I’ve been  _trying_ for two apocalypses! And now- now none of you belong anywhere, none of you have a home or a life."

Five scowled viciously, pacing the room and gesturing wildly, something hot and heavy tightening in his chest, "I watched all of you die two times in the space of two weeks when I swore that I would never let it happen again, but here we fucking are. That’s  _three_ times you assholes have died- I can’t save anyone- I can’t fix my mess, I can’t fucking do  _anything_ right!"

Five pivoted on his heel, chest heaving, face red as he turned to face his siblings. They stared, white-faced and shocked, Allison's hand over her mouth.

Five froze, breath stuttering in his chest and face going pale as he realized the rest of his siblings were staring at him in open-mouthed horror.

Vanya spoke, so soft and so worried and so  _loving_ , " _Five_ -“

He couldn’t do it.

Five pulled at the fabric of space-time and, with a small pop, vanished.

They all stared at the spot where he'd just stood only moments before.

Klaus sighed, "Well. That went well."

* * *

Five paced on the roof of the shitty hotel and fumed, angry at the world (for fucking up his life so throughly), at himself (for revealing so much), and at his siblings (for giving a damn).

Fury and rage burned in his bones, that endless well of anger still simmering on the boil it had finally reached back in that hotel room.

He kicked a rock on the roof and felt no satisfaction as it soared through the air and smacked into a metal box on the roof with a ‘ ping '. His head came up with a quick jerk as he heard a door open and then a soft, "Oh, shit, he’s here guys."

Fuck.

Maybe if he ignored them and pretended that he hadn’t heard them they would go away.

Five cursed under his breath as he heard soft footsteps behind him and the creaking of the door as more of his siblings followed Klaus. Of course they wouldn’t just leave. Five fumed silently.

Vanya spoke first, and he bet all of the money that he didn’t have that they’d formed an impromptu committee over who would speak to him first, "Five...? Are you alright?"

Five stared over the edge of the roof, hands in his pockets, and sullenly glared at the cars below.

There was a hand on his shoulder and Five resisted the urge to shrug it off, letting Vanya turn him towards her. She sighed as she saw him glowering up at her, "Five. You’ve gotta talk to us. We _want_ to listen."

There was a scoff from back at the door and an ' _oof_ ' as whoever made the noise was elbowed in the stomach. Five ignored how his mouth twitched up involuntarily at his siblings, "I  _have_ been."

Vanya hummed, taking his irritation smoothly in stride as she always did, "Okay. Well... What did you mean by you’ve seen us die twice in two weeks?"

Five ignored the rest of his siblings edging closer and sighed heavily, "None of you  _ever_ wondered how I recognized you in the first apocalypse?"

Luther frowned from where he’d come up behind his sister, "No, actually."

Five rolled his eyes, "Of course  _you_ wouldn’t, peabrain."

"Five-“

"You all were dead, okay? Back when I actually  was this age, I only recognized you from the tattoos on your wrists. Except you Vanya,” he pulled Extra Ordinary from his jacket, where it still sat with all his frantic calculations and scribbles, covered with the dust of a destroyed earth and filled with fifty years of writing, his life's work, "I had to find you on here. I wrote down all the important stuff for saving the world in it, but I guess that was pretty fucking useless, huh?"

Five laughed bitterly, completely oblivious to the dawning horror on his sibling's faces as his rage melted away into something else. Something just as dangerous and filled with far more despair.

He was just so  _tired_.

"And when I jumped into 1963 all of you assholes died right there from a nuclear war, which was what I trying to  _warn_ you about- and then the Handler shot all of us back in the barn, and if I hadn’t figured out what Dad said to me and solved his stupid word puzzle, you’d be dead a third time. So  _yeah_ , I’m pretty  _tired_."

Klaus mouthed the word 'shot?' at Diego who shrugged but Five didn’t see their exchange as he slapped the book into Vanya's hands, “So there huh? Fifty-eight years of work and a timeline where none of us belongs. But hey, at least the world isn’t fucking ending." He scrubbed a hand through his hair, glaring up at his siblings.

Vanya's fingers tightened around what was probably the last and only copy of Extra Ordinary in existence, beaten and battered and even a little bloodstained. Klaus frowned, "Hey, back in the hotel. We were talking. How long were you in the sixties?"

Five huffed, "A week? I don’t know. I came in, the world ended, I went back, and then I finally found Luther but he told me that he didn’t care because he's an assh-“

Vanya leaned down, reaching out to put a hand on his shoulder, "Five, you went straight from one apocalypse to another?"

Five shrugged off her hand, "Yeah? So what?"

"When was the last time you slept?"

He didn’t like where this conversation was going and ground out, "The last time I needed too. Look, I don’t need you to baby me. I’m fifty-eight. I can do this by myself."

But did he want too? He was so tired and the weight of the world was starting to break his bones. His legs trembled from the very effort and his veins were probably solely filled with caffeine at this point.

Vanya sighed, "Five, you don’t have too. We all know you're capable. None of us is doubting that you’re older than you look."

For a moment, he let himself think, to imagine, what would happen if he let go of the goal he’d been clinging so desperately to for fifty years. If he gave into the exhaustion that always seemed to be permanently darkening the edge of his vision and let his family take over for him.

Klaus joked under his breath, "Well that’s up for debate sometimes-“

Diego hissed, " _Klaus_ ."

The dream popped like a bubble and Five lifted his chin defiantly, as he faced every problem- head on, "I don’t need your help."

Diego reached forward, "Five, man, you can’t do  _everything_ on your own. You need people to help you."

Five laughed, no humor in it, just dry sarcasm and bitter weariness as he deflected neatly, "Oh,  _you’re_ one to talk, Number Two."

Diego's brows furrowed, "Look you little  _asshole_. You’re the one who’s been telling us that we all need to work together-“

Five pulled on the threads of rage that had seemed to drift into despair, clinging to it like a familiar coat, "And look where that got us! Nowhere!"

Diego snapped, Allison putting an arm on him to stop him from moving forward into his space, "Look which is it? We all need to work together or you need to do everything yourself?"

Five threw up his hands, "Yes- no- I don’t know!"

"Hey little man-“

"I’m not your little man!”

"Everyone needs to just calm down-“

“I am calm! I’m perfectly fucking calm!"

"We need to get to the root of the issue here-“ 

"Issues, Allison,  _issues._ It’s definitely plural-“

" _Fuck_ you, Klaus!"

Luther snapped, "Well what do you even want from us anyway, Five? Because none of us know!"

Five pulled at his hair, voice cracking under the pressure, "I want you all to be alive! Fuck what do you  _think_ I want? I want this fucking apocalypse to be over! I want to get to sleep and not have to slit another fucking throat because it’s all I can fucking think about sometimes! I never want to have to kill someone again!" Was he crying? Is this what crying was? Everything breath _hurt_ and his eyes _burned_ with the sheer intensity of it. He scrubbed at his eyes, voice shrill and wet and breaking, "I want all of you to be alive and fucking happy! I want the universe not to fuck me over one time! I want to fucking _sleep_! Is that too much to  _fucking_ ask?"

Vanya gripped him by the shoulders, something sad in her eyes as she shook her head, "No, that’s not too much to ask. Five you’ve been through so much, but you can rest easy-“

She pulled him close and Five resisted, fighting her embrace, but she held on even as he fought weakly, "No, I fucking can’t-“

"You can sleep. It’s alright, Five. _You can sleep._ "

Five scowled into her shoulder and went stiff at the almost overwhelming contact. Her shirt was soft and warm and smelling like home, her fingers dug into his sides as if to remind him that he was still here, and his cheeks were damp and stained by tears. He sniffed and glared into the roof's gravel as he felt his siblings crowding around him. Their touch was almost too much and it burned so hot, but he didn’t want to let go.

His hands came up to grip Vanya's shirt and he felt a hand on his back and then comfortable darkness as Luther encircled them, pulling them all close in the darkness. He could hear their heartbeats and soft murmurs and quiet complaints, a soft whine of "You're stepping on my foot," accompanied by a shift and then a "You're an idiot, Klaus."

There in the warm darkness of their embrace, surrounded by a family alive and well in a world where they weren't supposed to exist, Five let himself break. 

**Author's Note:**

> My tumblr is here: https://ford-ye-fiji.tumblr.com/


End file.
